When we flew into Omaha, we headed straight for South 13th Street to have dumplings and kraut at the Bohemian Café. It was three in the afternoon, but we were hungry, and one of the best things about this old-time neighborhood restaurant is that once it opens at 11am, it stays open until the last pilsner is drunk at the bar late at night.

Vitáme Vás is the house motto, meaning “we welcome you,” and in fact this is a place where all are made to feel welcome, whether you are an old-timer whose parents brought you here decades ago or a visiting fireman who wants a fun-time meal with polka music setting the beat in the dining room. It is an immensely cheerful place, a vast, multi-room eating hall decorated with colorful old-country woodwork and pictures of men and women in traditional peasant attire; tables are patrolled by veteran professional waitresses in bright red dirndl skirts.

The traditional way to begin a meal is with a cup of liver dumpling soup, which is homely and homey; we also love the plain-dumpling, chicken-stock soup that is often available as an alternate. Every meal begins with a basket of chewy sour rye bread. The big menu includes American-style steaks and seafood, a quartet of specials every day, and traditional Czech specialties. Foremost among the kitchen’s accomplishments is roast duck – half a bird with crisp skin and flavorful meat that pulls off the bone with ease. We are particularly fond of the sauerbraten, which is a stack of pot-roast-tender hunks of beef that are a joy to pull apart with the tines of a fork. We also like the Czech goulash, a vivid red, smoky pork stew. There is a large choice of side dishes, but the two for which the Bohemian Café is best known are dumplings and kraut. The former is a pair of saucer-size slices of doughy matter covered with whatever gravy your main course demands; the latter is a fetching sweet and sour mix, thick as pudding, dotted with caraway seeds. Whatever entrée you choose, it will come flanked by dumplings and kraut – an awesome presentation that is a challenge to all but the mightiest appetite.

Paper place mats remind diners that this restaurant is home of the Bohemian Girl Jim Beam commemorative bourbon bottle (there is a huge collection of Jim Beam commemoratives in the entryway); and the mats also list the lyrics to the house song, which has been used in radio advertisements:

Dumplings and kraut today
At Bohemian Café
Draft beer that’s sparkling, plenty of parking
See you at lunch, Okay?

"The Czech goulash features tender chunks of meat in a delicious, dark sauce."
Cliff Strutz

"The plum dumplings are baseball-sized and come four to an order. Although listed as an entree, this is a very sweet dish and should be treated as a dessert. Expect a full 30-minute wait for the kitchen to make it. "
Cliff Strutz

"Fork-tender beef is in the middle; on the left is kraut, on the right, slices of dumpling."
Michael Stern